An aural supplement, episode 5

Running Time: 58:14 | File Size 54 MB
Download: .mp3
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It's May and the thoughts of those around the Rockey home turn to those of fancy. Three is the magic number, but I hear the good Lord gives no more than we can handle. So kiss your mama and fire up the blinky, it's another day trippin' episode of your friendly interweb DJ e-spinnin' tunes both old and new for the very few who was askin'.

1. De La Soul “The Magic Number”
2. Le Switch “Tongue Tied ”
3. Feist “1234”
4. A Tribe Called Quest “Jazz (We've Got)”
5. The Kinks “Village Green”
6. Meiko Kaji “Urami Bushi”
7. Garrison Keillor & Jearlyn Steele “Coffee Jingle”
8. Howard Tate “8 Days on the Road”
9. Neko Case “Things That Scare Me”
10. Shirtless Biddles “Mamie”
11. Young MC “Know How”
12. Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 “Day Tripper”
13. Groucho Marx “Excellent Chances”
14. Arcade Fire “Intervention”
15. X “The New World”
16. Bobby Fuller Four “I Fought the Law”
17. Wilco “Hate It Here”
18. The Who “Two Thousand Years”

Tomorrow the blue sky

Wilco return with their sixth studio album, Sky Blue Sky.

The mother load

This photo of my mother and I has always been a favorite of mine. I don't necessarily know why. I find myself staring into the eyes of that little being wondering what it must have been like for my mother to hold her first born child. Did she wonder even then what would become of this tiny life whom she carried inside her body for months? I'm sure there were plenty of times later in life when she longed for those days when she could just wrap me up and hold me in her arms. I spent lunch this mother's day around my grandmother's dining room table with my brother and my wife. I've been fortunate to have some amazing women in my life who have loved me and who have taught me to love: My mother, my wife, my grandmother who suffers through her alzheimer's inflicted husband, my grandmother whose passionate faith and love for her family have not been dampened by death, my mother-in-law. Where would I be without these women? I'd be nowhere... and I'd be there without clean underwear.

Here's to you moms!

Download:
MP3: Paul Simon :: Mother and Child Reunion
MP3: The White Stripes :: I Want to be the Boy to Warm Your Mother's Heart
MP3: Gillian Welch :: I Had a Real Good Mother and Father
MP3: Ben Harper & The Blind Boys of Alabama :: Mother Pray

The fly cassanova

I was recently digging through the archives in search of tracks for inclusion on the next volume of If Awesome Were a Compact Disc. It gave me the long overdue opportunity to revisit the quintessential hip-hop album of my youth, Stone Cold Rhymin' by Marvin Young (aka Young MC).

Somewhere between my 8th grade and freshman year in high school, I had dubbed a copy of Stone Cold from my friend Eric's cassette tape of the album. During a day when misogynistic lyrics and gangsta rap were becoming the preferred listening of midwestern white boys, the infectious grooves of songs like 'I Come Off,' 'Roll with the Punches' and the radio hit 'Bust a Move' helped protect my innocence and kept me young (pun very much intended). Young's lyrics were fun and often a bit goofy ("with the funky fresh rhymes comin' outta my gizzard,") but they rolled across 70's funk samples and bass lines provided by the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea in such a way that would have my head bobbing long after the groove was over. I would often show off my own skills by reciting the album's 50 second track "Fastest Rhyme" for friends. I'd like to say it won over quite a few ladies. I'd like to say it, but the claim really wouldn't hold much water.

Though he won a Grammy for his hit "Bust a Move" and co-wrote hits such as "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina" for Tone Loc, Young MC never really produced anything of acclaim after the success of Stone Cold Rhymin'. Seventeen years later, I'm listening to this gem from my youth over and over in my car and I'm unashamed of the funky fresh rhymes coming out of my own gizzard. I am ashamed however that I just typed that sentence.